66 "The
Christian economy, therefore, since it is the new and definitive Covenant, will
never pass away; and no new public revelation is to be expected before the
glorious manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ." Yet even if Revelation is
already complete, it has not been made completely explicit; it remains for
Christian faith gradually to grasp its full significance over the course of the
centuries.

67 Throughout the ages, there have been
so-called "private" revelations, some of which have been recognized by the
authority of the Church. They do not belong, however, to the deposit of faith.
It is not their role to improve or complete Christ's definitive Revelation, but
to help live more fully by it in a certain period of history. Guided by the
Magisterium of the Church, the sensus fidelium knows how to discern and welcome
in these revelations whatever constitutes an authentic call of Christ or his
saints to the Church.

Christian faith cannot
accept "revelations" that claim to surpass or correct the Revelation of which
Christ is the fulfillment, as is the case in certain non-Christian religions and
also in certain recent sects which base themselves on such "revelations."

Public
Revelation. The Church teaches as de fide (of the Faith) that all that the
Father desired to reveal for our salvation has been revealed in His Word, Jesus
Christ. The Word communicated this Revelation to His Apostles, who either wrote
it down or handed it on (traditio) in their preaching and teaching (1 Cor.
15:1-3, 2 Thes. 2:15). The deposit of the Faith, therefore, is to be found in
the twin fountains of Public Revelation, Sacred Scripture and Sacred (Apostolic)
Tradition.

While some
things in Public Revelation can be known by reason (the existence of a Supreme
Being, elements of the moral law), many matters involve supernatural realities
(mysteries such as the Trinity, divinity of Christ, grace, etc.) which cannot be
known or proven directly by the senses or human reason. However, fortified by
God's gift of supernatural Faith the human intellect is made capable of
assenting to such truths (Mt. 16:17) and even understanding them, in so far as
human beings can. Catholics are obliged to believe the entire deposit of the
Faith by this divine and Catholic Faith, the extent of which is known by the
teaching of the Church. In the words of the well-known Act of Faith addressed to
God,

I believe
these and all the truths which the Holy Catholic Church teaches, because You
have revealed them, who can neither deceive nor be
deceived.

The
Teaching Authority (Magisterium) of the Church alone, therefore, determines what
Catholics must believe by this divine and Catholic faith. Everything else in
life rests on human faith in the credibility of assertions of truth of one kind
or another, such as whether John Wilkes Booth actually shot Abraham Lincoln or
whether the Blessed Virgin appeared to a certain person.

Private
Revelation. God continues to reveal Himself to individuals "not indeed for the
declaration of any new doctrine of faith, but for the direction of human acts"
(St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II q174 a6 reply 3). Since it occurs
after the close of Public Revelation the Church distinguishes the content of
such particular revelations to individuals from the deposit of the Faith by
calling it private revelation. The test of its authenticity is always its
consistency with Public Revelation as guarded faithfully by the Catholic Church.
For example, alleged revelations which propose to improve upon, correct or
entirely supplant Public Revelation are rejected by the Church as inauthentic,
regardless of the claims made for them. Such revelations include those of
Mohammed in the Koran, Joseph Smith in the Book of Mormon, the writings of new
age mystics, psychics and the like.

Some
private revelations, however, the Church has accepted as credible, calling them
constat de supernaturalitate (that is, they give evidence of a supernatural
intervention). Such private revelations cannot correct or add anything
essentially new to Public Revelation; however, they may contribute to a deeper
understanding of the faith, provide new lines of theological investigation (such
as suggested by the revelations to St. Margaret Mary on the Sacred Heart), or
recall mankind prophetically to the living of the Gospel (as at Fátima). No
private revelation can ever be necessary for salvation, though its content may
obviously coincide with what is necessary for salvation as known from Scripture
and Tradition. The person who believes the teachings of the Magisterium,
utilizes devoutly the sacramental means of sanctification and prayer, and
remains in Communion with the Pope and the bishops in union with him, is already
employing the necessary means of salvation. A private revelation may recall
wayward individuals to the faith, stir the devotion of the already pious,
encourage prayer and penance on behalf of others, but it cannot substitute for
the Catholic faith, the sacraments and hierarchical communion with the Pope and
bishops.

Another
way of saying this is that private revelations may not be believed with divine
and Catholic Faith. They rest on the credibility of the evidence in favor of a
supernatural origin. In the case of private revelations approved by the highest
authority in the Church we can say with Pope Benedict XIV,
Although an assent of Catholic faith may
not be given to revelations thus approved, still, an assent of human faith, made
according to the rules of prudence, is due them; for according to these rules
such revelations are probable and worthy of pious credence. [De Serv. Dei
Beatif.]

The Pope
is saying that a Catholic, seeing that the Church (and here the Holy See is
meant, as only it's acts can be of universal effect) has investigated and
approved certain revelations, is being prudent to give them human assent.
That acceptance does not rest on the guarantee of Faith, or the charism of
infallibility, but on the credibility of the evidence as it appeals to reason.
The assent involved is not supernatural but the natural assent that the
intellect gives to facts which it judges to be true. Approved private
revelations are thus worthy of our acceptance and can be of great benefit to the
faithful, for as the Catechism of the Catholic Church
notes,

Guided by
the Magisterium of the Church, the sensus fidelium knows how to discern and
welcome in these revelations whatever constitutes an authentic call of Christ or
his saints to the Church. [CCC 67]

However,
on the other hand, they do not demand acceptance by Catholics. As Pope Benedict
states in the aforementioned text,

it is
possible to refuse to accept such revelations and to turn from them, as long as
one does so with proper modesty, for good reasons, and without the intention of
setting himself up as a superior. [De Serv. Dei Beatif.]

Sources of
Private Revelations. Approved private revelations derive from two sources.
First, there is the mysticism of the Servants of God who have been proposed for
canonization. When the diocese which initiated the Cause has concluded its
investigation and forwarded the documentation to Rome, the Congregation for the
Causes of the Saints undertakes its own study of the person's life. If the
Congregation determines that he or she lived a life of heroic virtue this
decision necessarily includes the judgment that the writings, including any
mystical ones, are not contrary to faith and morals. If the Holy Father concurs
the person is declared Venerable. The later canonization of the person
(generally considered an act of papal infallibility), only heightens the
credibility of the person's writings and the pious regard Catholics should have
for them, according to the standard given by Benedict
XIV.

The second
kind of private revelation comes through apparitions. The person who receives an
apparition is not necessarily far along in the spiritual life, though they are
typically humble and simple souls. God grants this grace for the good of the
Church and not as the fruit of contemplative prayer. When apparitions judged at
the diocesan level constat de supernaturalitate (giving signs or evidences
of supernaturality) receive the approbation of the Holy See, as indicated by a
positive judgment, the granting of papal favors to the apparition site, the
approval of a liturgical feast, the canonization of the seer or other clear
signs of approval, the words of Pope Benedict XIV can certainly be applied, as
well, "an assent of human faith, made according to the rules of prudence, is due
them."

Private
Revelations Without Roman Approval. Since most private revelations and alleged
apparitions never receive the approval of the Holy See Catholics must often
judge for themselves whether they are credible. If the person (whether living or
dead) has a reputation for sanctity (such as Padre Pio had), then clearly any
mystical revelations have considerable credibility prior to any formal
evaluation by the Church. The witness of prudent priests, especially the
spiritual director of the person, is a key element in determining credibility.
However, even here care must be taken. The spiritual director himself must be
competent in mystical theology, credible as a person and in good standing with
the Church. False mystics have been known to "shop" for gullible, extremely aged
or incompetent directors. Ideally, a bishop upon hearing of an alleged mystic
would assign a competent director, thus insuring the authenticity of the
evaluation.

In the
case of apparitions, however, they often occur to obscure individuals with
little or no reputation. Their human credibility may rest initially on the
attitude of the local clergy and the personal experience of observers. There may
or may not be phenomena which suggest something out of the ordinary. The message
may or may not be appear to be consistent with Church teaching. The person or
persons may or may not have a competent spiritual director. Finally they may or
may not be investigated by the local bishop to determine if they are credible.
In the end the faithful are often left to fend for themselves in a perplexing
sea of information. If the message is orthodox, the seer(s) of good reputation,
the clergy favorable, the signs supportive, even without an official
investigation the faithful can make a prudent judgment that it is credible.
Certainly those who were present at the apparitions of Lourdes and Fátima, as
well as those who believed in them prior to Church approval, had to have made
such a judgment.

Certainly,
however, the faithful benefit the most from the judgment of the bishop of the
diocese in which the apparition occurs. He has the authority to assemble a
commission of scientific and theological experts, to judge the case, as well as
the grace of vocation to carry out this pastoral service. While his decision is
not infallible, it has the presumption of being correct and should receive the
respectfully adherence of the faithful (Canon 753). Thus, such decisions should
generally be decisive in the prudential judgment of the faithful. It would
require very weighty and sound theological reasons (not feelings or mere
agreement with the content of the alleged apparition) to find defect in such a
decision. Such intellectual disagreement, however, does not permit acting out of
communion with the bishop. (See my FAQ on Medjugorje for the attitude of the
Holy See in one such case.)

With
respect to any disciplinary precepts the bishop makes concerning the apparition
and its site, they should be followed faithfully (e.g. what sacraments, if any,
may be celebrated there). No Catholic should ever violate the practical norms
laid down by the local bishop with respect to an alleged apparition, even if
intellectually they disagree with his conclusion regarding the alleged
apparition. Such disobedience would be sinful, and if it characterized the
attitude of the followers of the alleged apparition it would be a sign of its
inauthenticity, i.e. by producing bad fruit.

The
decision of the local bishop should be one of the following: 1) constat de
supernaturalitate (established as supernatural), 2) constat de non
supernaturalitate (established as not supernatural); or 3) non constat de
supernaturalitate (not established as supernatural).

1. Constat
de supernaturalitate. An apparition judged supernatural (formerly called worthy
of belief) has manifested signs or evidence of being an authentic or truly
miraculous intervention from heaven. This judgment is possible when there is
evidence of supernatural phenomena, sound doctrine, moral probity, mental health
and sound piety of the seer(s) and enduring good fruits among the
faithful.

The issue
of supernaturality is one that deserves to be explored more fully. According to
the common teaching of the Church, most extraordinary phenomena in the mystical
order (visions, apparitions, locutions, ecstasies, mystical knowledge etc.) are
caused by angels acting on God's behalf. Whether the burning bush which Moses
saw, the ecstatic flights of St. Joseph Cupertino, the stigmata of St. Francis
or the revelations of St. Catherine, the general rule in the spiritual order is
that God does not do immediately and directly what can be done mediately through
a lower order nature, in this case the good angels. The presence of such
phenomenon is not, therefore, unequivocal evidence of supernaturality.
Each of the approved apparitions have had such clear signs, from the
instantaneous and inexplicable cures at Lourdes to the natural prodigy of
October 13th 1917 in Fátima, but also the other marks of authenticity mentioned
above.

2. Constat
de non supernaturalitate. The judgment that an alleged apparition has been shown
to be not supernatural means it is either clearly not miraculous or lacks
sufficient signs of the miraculous. Private revelation, for example, which is
doctrinally dangerous or which manifests hostility to lawful authority could not
come from God. It could even be demonic, especially if there are extraordinary
signs accompanying it. The devil gladly mingles truth and lie to deceive the
faithful, dazzling them with signs and wonders to give credence to his message.
His purpose is to separate them from the Church, either by getting them to
believe things contrary to the deposit of the faith or to act
contemptuously of Church authority. An attitude of pride and judgment toward the
Church is a clear sign of his presence. An alleged revelation may also only be a
pious rambling, consistent with faith and morals, but lacking evidence of being
anything more than the product of human effort. No fraud need be intended, only
an active imagination. Finally, it may be that the doctrine may be sound and
there may be phenomena, but insufficient to demonstrate supernaturality. In this
latter case, there would seem to be a possibility of revision.

3. Non
constat de supernaturalitate. Finally, it may not be evident whether or not the
alleged apparition is authentic. This judgment would seem to be completely open
to further evidence or development.

Responsibility of the Faithful. Today
there are a myriad of alleged private revelations and apparitions vying for the
attention of the faithful. None have been definitively judged by the Holy See,
some have been approved by local authority (e.g. Akita, Cuapa, Betania), others
have been found lacking in supernaturality (e.g. Medjugorje, Garabandal), some
few have been condemned (e.g. Necedah, Bayside) and finally, the vast majority
have received no attention from Church authorities
whatsoever.

The first
responsibility of the faithful is to remain firmly established in the faith, in
the sacraments and in communion with the Pope and bishops. Any Catholic who
gives their primary attention to alleged private revelation at the expense of
Sacred Scripture, the teaching of the Church (especially the Catechism),
sacramental practice, prayer and fidelity to Church authority is off course. The
running after spiritual phenomena, such as alleged revelations, is condemned by
St. John of the Cross as spiritual avarice. This means that pious souls who
would be repulsed by crude materialistic greed think nothing of being greedy to
know revelations and prophecies. An exclusive, or even a predominant attention
to these matters (especially apocalyptic ones), cannot help but produce an
unbalanced spirituality. Should the Church condemn some favorite alleged
revelation such a person may find themselves believing more in it than in the
supernatural authority of the Church. The devil will have succeeded in what he
had set out to do.

The second
responsibility is to have regard, in the first place, for those private
revelations and apparitions approved by the Church. Within a balanced practice
of the faith the edifying content of approved private revelations can be a
motive for deeper piety and fidelity to the Gospel. God has chosen to give
guidance to the Church in particular eras in this way and we would, as I noted
above, be imprudent to disregard altogether what are credibly His prophetic
interventions in the life of His Church.

Finally, there are many
other private revelations that have not received Church approval. The Second
Vatican Council urges us to discern the Spirit in the case of such extraordinary
graces [Lumen gentium 12], which means being neither gullible or incredulous,
but subjecting them to all relevant theological and human tests of credibility.
Clearly, in this the judgment of the local bishop is the key element of such a
discernment as I noted above. Often enough, unfortunately, the laity are left to
make this determination themselves, relying on the testimony of the events, the
judgment of holy and orthodox priests and common sense. It must always be kept
in mind that however credible and reasonable such revelations seem to be, God
would never ask one to separate oneself from the faith and discipline of the
Church to follow it.

The Medjugorje
phenomenon and the discernment of spirits: a conversation with dogmatic
theologian Manfred Hauke.

For
years there has been discussion of the phenomenon of the alleged "Marian
apparitions" that took their origin in Medjugorje: Does the Mother of God
really appear to the seers who originated in Medjugorje? Or are the
experiences parapsychological fruits of the seers' unconscious? Are they a
deceptive manipulation or even a trick of evil forces? According to reports,
there are plans at the Vatican to have the Medjugorje phenomenon conclusively
investigated by a commission. Regina Einig asked the chairman of the German
Mariological society, professor of dogmatics and patristics at Lugano, Manfred
Hauke, about the subject.

Wherein can we find the theological
meaning of Marian apparitions?

Appearances of the Mother of God belong
to the charism of prophecy, in which the mysterious working of the Spirit of
God comes to expression. St. Paul emphasizes: "Do not quench the Spirit! Do
not despise prophetic utterances!" (1 Thess. 5:19-20). The book of Proverbs
already emphasizes: "Without prophecy, the people become demoralized" (Prov.
29:18). According to Thomas Aquinas, prophetic revelations after the Apostolic
era are not given in order to spread a new teaching of faith, but serve to
guide human action. Theology speaks here of "private revelations", inasmuch as
the content conveyed does not belong to general and public revelation, which
closed with the Apostolic era. "Private", then, means a reference to an
individual person, a group or even the whole Church in a particular historical
situation. "Private revelations", or (better) prophetic revelations help us to
recognize the "signs of the times" (Lk. 12:56) and act accordingly. Following
Pope Benedict XIV, the recognition of a private revelation by the responsible
bishop is not the basis of any duty to believe, in the strict sense (fides
divina), but it states that one can approach the apparitions with a purely
human faith (fides humana) based on reasoning. So no Catholic is obliged to
believe that the Mother of God appeared in Lourdes and Fatima; but the Church
states that the reports of the apparitions are worthy of belief and a Catholic
may believe in them and cultivate a corresponding spirituality. Yes, the
Church has even set several memorial days in the liturgical calendar and
issued corresponding Mass formulas. Prophetic revelations are not the normal
case of Christian life, but an exception: "Blessed are they who do not see and
yet believe" (Jn. 20:29). The Catechism of the Catholic Church stresses with
St. John of the Cross: In Jesus Christ, the eternal divine Word, God the
Father has shared everything with us (cf. Hebr. 1:1-12). "Any person
questioning God or desiring some vision or revelation would be guilty not only
of foolish behavior but also of offending him, by not fixing his eyes entirely
upon Christ and by living with the desire for some other novelty"
(CCC
65).

Is
there really a possibility of apparitions that convey to a person something
that does not originate in his own psyche?

According
to one widespread theory, which goes back to Karl Rahner primarily, all
apparitions are "imaginative visions". According to that theory, the content
of the "apparition" has a psychogenic origin, even if it can be made possible
by a divine impulse. That is, God does not work in this world immediately, but
only through created secondary causes (especially through the human psyche).
In other words: whether someone experiences a vision of a "ship's goblin", or
of his own stepmother, or of the Virgin Mary depends on the subjective
psychological disposition, perhaps on unconscious mental processes, and not on
objective circumstances that encounter the person from outside himself. In
such a theory the question of authenticity or inauthenticity of Marian
apparitions is no longer germane, in the last analysis. Against this, I would
stress that to exclude the unmediated intervention of God in this world is
intellectually not tenable, because then the original creation out of nothing,
which goes back to God alone, would be impossible. Besides this, there are
unequivocally witnessed phenomena, in which the content of what was seen comes
from an extra-mental experience: for example, in the Marian apparitions at
Knock in Ireland in 1879, 15 people saw Mary with other saints, and an altar,
in pouring rain; the place where the saints stood remained dry despite the
pouring rain. Such an event is not explicable by Rahner's subjectivistic
proposal. We must always consider the subjective factor: even in genuine
revelations errors can intrude, when human imagination adds something or when
a statement is interpreted wrongly. And there is naturally the phenomenon of
fantasies of a morbid origin, or the possibility of deception. If both are
excluded, standing in the center of the interpretation of apparitions is the
evaluation of its extra-mental origin: the intervention of God and heavenly
personages, or instead evil forces.

What
forms of visions or apparitions can be distinguished?

"Apparition" means, in its theological
definition, the intervention of a heavenly being, experienced by the external
senses or by the faculty of imagination. The concept "vision", in contrast,
places emphasis on the subjective components, and therefore on the perception
of an event which is by nature not visible. Among them, there can be "bodily
visions", if the approaching object is perceived with the visual sense;
"imaginative" visions (which only manifest themselves in the faculty of
imagination), or "intellectual" visions (which show themselves in thought
without conveying a sensory impression).

Does the
Medjugorje phenomenon fit, in your view, in the line of the great Marian
apparition sites such as Lourdes, Fatima, or Guadalupe?

Medjugorje
has, in common with the apparition sites you mentioned, which have been
recognized by the Church, a formidable stream of pilgrims, who pray there,
seek conversion, or renew their faith. I myself was impressed on a visit to
Medjugorje in 1985 with the numerous confessions; in one of them, someone told
me: "My last confession was before the Second World War." Also a fair number
of religious vocations is connected with the pilgrimage, the believing
community, and the life of prayer that can be experienced in those
places.

On the
other side, there are obvious differences. Among those are the number of
visionary phenomena and the miracles recognized by the Church as worthy of
belief. In Guadalupe there were four appearances of Mary (December 9-12,
1531), which were made credible by one of the greatest miracles in Church
history, namely the impression of the image of Mary on the mantel of the seer.
In the following ten years eight million Indios converted. The authenticity of
the apparitions was recognized in 1566 after a canonical process and the seer
was canonized in 2002. In Lourdes eighteen Marian appearances were counted,
which took place within a half year (Feb. 11 - July 16, 1858). The messages
connected with them concentrated on prayer and penance. They were made
credible from the beginning by miracles, which stood up to a thoroughly
critical medical and ecclesiastical examination. The bishop's recognition
(1862) is connected with the personal credibility of the seer, Bernadette
Soubirous, who entered a convent after her encounter with the Mother of God
and was canonized in 1933. The events of Fatima comprise six appearances of
Mary (May to October 1917), which were preceded by three apparitions of angels
(1916) and were extended through apparitions to the seer Lucia in Pontevedra
(1925-26) and Tuy (1929-30). The miracle of the sun in Fatima (October 13,
1917) happened in front of about 50,000 people. The Marian apparitions of 1917
were recognized as worthy of belief in 1930, and the messages to Lucia at
Pontevedra and Tuy in 1939. Two of the seers of 1917 (Francisco and Jacinta,
who died as children) were beatified in 2000, while the inaugural process for
the recently deceased Sister Lucia began in 2008. So Guadalupe, Lourdes, and
Fatima are distinguished by a very limited number of Marian appearances, by a
clearly outlined message, through the holiness, recognized by the Church, of
the seers. and by the impressive confirmation on the grounds of obvious
miracles.

In
contrast to those, the Medjugorje phenomenon presents itself differently: the
number of alleged appearances must reach over 40,000; the messages connected
with them are especially numerous and raise some critical questions; regarding
the credibility of the seers, there is a shadow in a few cases from the
phenomenon of a provable lie; a miracle recognized by the Church does not
exist; the miraculous signs predicted by the seers as confirmations of
Medjugorje, have not been observed yet. The Portuguese Cardinal
Saraiva-Martins, for years prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of
Saints, was recently asked about the parallels between Medjugorje and Fatima.
He gave the opinion: While the shepherd children of Fatima showed themselves
to be humble and chose silence, these virtues are not obvious in Medjugorje;
while Sister Lucia entered the cloister, no one in Medjugorje has chosen
consecrated life [one of the seers instead married an American beauty queen;
this is of course no sin, but it is also no especial sign of a supernatural
influence through Marian apparitions]; Sister Lucia put down the secrets
entrusted to her by Mary in writing, while the visionaries of Medjugorje keep
them for themselves. "No, I see nothing in common between Fatima and
Medjugorje" (www.papanews.it,
January 15, 2010).

Many
people regard Medjugorje as the beginning of their conversion. Is there a
theological logic of "good fruits", which allows for conclusions of an
experience of grace or the authenticity of the phenomenon?

Good
fruits alone are still no confirmation for the supernatural origin of a
visionary phenomenon. In medicine placebo therapy also sometimes brings good
results, but they aren't to be credited to the medicine as such. And even at a
place, at which trickery happens or even the devil acts, it is possible that
divine grace acts and people convert and find God. In the criteria for the
supernatural credibility of Marian apparitions the fruits are to be connected
with the examination of the phenomenon itself and its confirmation through
miracles. In Medjugorje there are, in addition, not only good fruits, but also
a whole number of negative consequences that are connected with the phenomenon
of the apparitions. One of those is the encouragement given to two Franciscan
friars, who were urged by the seer Vicka in the name of the "Gospa" to set
themselves against the canonically legitimate directives of the local bishop
regarding their pastoral activity. At the repeated exhortations of the "Gospa"
to disobedience (13 times), the ordinary at the time, Bishop Zanic, who had
been originally inclined favorably to the Medjugorje phenomenon, reacted with
very understandable rejection.

In his
reaction to Cardinal Schönborn's visit Bishop Peric draws
attention to further fruits that are connected
with the same exhortation to disobedience: at present there are in the
Mostar-Duvno diocese nine ex-Franciscans who were suspended from ministry, but
are carrying on in usurped parishes as legal priests; certain Franciscans
invited an Old-Catholic deacon in 2001, who presented himself as an
"Archbishop" and "confirmed" over 700 young people in the usurped parishes,
which a deacon can never validly do; two of the recalcitrant friars invited an
Old-Catholic bishop from Switzerland with the request to consecrate them as
bishops, which the Old-Catholic bishop, however, declined. Two friars, who
were closely connected with the beginning of the Medjugorje phenomenon, were
disciplined by the Church: Jozo Zovko (the pastor during the first months of
the apparition, June-August 1981) was forbidden by his superiors to have any
contact with Medjugorje; Tomislav Vlasic, who worked in Medjugorje from
1981-1988, was released from his
priestly duties by the Holy See in 2008. The
Congregation for
the Doctrine of the Faith gave the reason, among
other things, of offenses against the sixth commandment, exacerbated by
alleged "mystical motivations". The friar had in fact, at the direction of the
"Gospa" and the seer Marija Pavlovic, conducted a "mystical marriage" with a
lady from Germany in the framework of a mixed religious community. This
unusual connection between personal tendencies and mysticism has a longer
back-story: in 1976, and therefore before his involvement in Medjugorje, the
friar impregnated a religious sister in a mixed "Franciscan community", sent
her with pious exhortations to Germany and denied his paternity. This case
became known to Bishop Zanic and Cardinal Ratzinger in 1984. Vlasic himself
brought the "word of wisdom" spoken to him at a charismatic conference in Rome
(May 6, 1981) with him to Medjugorje: "Fear not, I will send you my Mother."
An Irish Charismatic woman [Sr. Briege McKenna, O.S.C. --RC] asserted that
from Vlasic streams of living water would flow. The influence of such a figure
on the beginning period of the Medjugorje phenomenon poses a great number of
critical questions. Grave moral accusations are also placed against Zovko, the
pastor in the early months, and long-time spiritual confidant of the group of
seers (E.M. Jones, The Medjugorje
Deception, 2001).

Medjugorje
is often cited as an "oasis of peace" during the civil war at the beginning of
the '90s. Yet there are also uncomfortable facts that disturb the harmonious
view. When revenue from the pilgrimage industry went down in 1992, there were
press reports in the wake of a violent conflict among three family clans that
served pilgrimage businesses. In a "cleansing action" about 140 inhabitants of
Medjugorje were killed, while 600 others had to flee. "This was all kept
secret from the the outside world, since it naturally could not be brought
into accord with belief in the Queen of Peace" (R. Franken,
"A Journey to
Medjugorje", 2000, p, 45). Thus there are not only
good fruits to the Medjugorje phenomenon.

Do you
see the grace of God at work in Medjugorje?

When
people convert, pray rightly, receive the sacraments, and renew their
Christian life, without a doubt the grace of God is at work. This is valid for
every place in the world and certainly also for Medjugorje.

Which
criteria play a decisive role from the Church's point of view for the
recognition of the supernatural character of
apparitions?

An
apparition can only be evaluated as supernatural, when it is ruled out
securely that natural influences or the interference of the devil are
responsible for it. These things must be investigated: (1) The seers: are they
mentally healthy? Are illusion, suggestion, and hallucination ruled out? Are
the seers upright and morally straightforward? Do they show a greater zeal in
their life of faith than before the visionary event? Are they obedient and
humble with respect to the competent representatives of the Church? Mental
illness, lying, immoral acts in connection with the visions and lack of
humility are extremely negative criteria. Other questions pose themselves: (2)
about the content of the phenomena: do they correspond to the Catholic faith?
Are any of the utterances ridiculous or unworthy of God? Prophecies must, in
order to be proven supernatural, refer to future events that depend on human
freedom, or respectively, on the mysterious workings of God. Another positive
criterion is the disclosure of secrets of the human heart. Also important are
(3) the fruits of the events, in which the goodness of their origin unfolds
(cf. Mt. 7: 15-20). Genuine apparitions strengthen the seer in virtue, above
all in humility and patience, while false revelations produce pride and
disobedience. The decisive criterion (4) is the miracle, which must have an
unequivocal connection with the apparition.

Can
the devil also work miracles?

A miracle,
understood as the unmediated intervention of God in the empirical world, is
provable as such, when it surpasses the powers of creatures. Among the
clearest examples of these is the resurrection of the dead. It is not simple
to distinguish them from the "miracles" of evil spirits, whose power surpasses
human ability. As created beings, it is simply impossible for them to bring
about a creation out of nothing (which pertains to an infinite power). They
also cannot make predictions that depend on the inner freedom of man, because
the devil has no power over the innermost part of man. This is made clear in
cases of possession: the demons can overpower the body of the possessed
person, but when they speak out of him during the crisis invoked by exorcism,
the consciousness of the human being is normally "turned off". God, in
contrast, knows how to draw the human will toward Himself from the inside,
without forcing it.

For the
devil there is no problem, for example, in making statues cry, calling forth
ecstasies and stigmata, to manipulate cameras, to make people speak in
tongues, or produce marvelous scents. Because of his surpassing knowledge of
the natural world he can also, to a limited degree, make assertions about the
future, in cases when the influences of the already recognizable factors is
extrapolated. He can also reveal hidden things that are unknown to a person
(with the exception of secrets of the innermost part of man). A known example
for the working of the devil in pseudo-mystical phenomena is, say, in Spain in
the 16th century, the life of the religious sister Magdalena of the Cross
(1487-1560). From the age of five she had plenty of ecstasies and visions. She
tells the story that Saints Dominic and Francis had prepared her for receiving
her first Communion. Three months before being granted permission to receive
the Eucharist, she is receiving Communion daily "in a mystical manner", in
which every time she emits a scream. At the age of 17 she enters a convent of
the Poor Clares in Cordoba. She receives stigmata and clairvoyantly knows how
to find hidden objects. At her perpetual profession the nuns are surprised at
the lengthy presence of a dove, which is taken to be a sign of the Holy
Spirit. Karl I, the king of Spain, has Magdalena bless, among other things,
the royal standard and the clothing of his son Philip. Cardinal Cisneros and
numerous other princes of the Church are also impressed. Even the Holy Father
personally asked the Spanish Poor Clare for her intercession. Only a few
reflective contemporaries such as St. Ignatius of Loyola and St. John of Avila
remain skeptical. Their doubts are confirmed when the Poor Clares start to
wonder about the lax leadership of their superior and elect a successor. The
"miracle nun" was then visited with convulsions. When the exorcism undertaken
thereafter exposes a demonic presence, the Inquisition undertakes a trial
against Magdalena. In it she testifies that in the year 1504 she made a
forty-year pact with the devil, which had reached its end in 1544. Her
paranormal abilities ceased. After she abjured her errors, she does penance
for several years, she can no longer be elected to any offices in the Order,
and lives an exemplary life until her death. In other words: the devil can
succeed to make fools of the highest princes of the Church for decades long.
Such an example warns us to caution in the face of present-day
happenings.

How do
you evaluate the "messages" of the "Gospa"?

According
to the study of a Croatian psychologist and theologian the published
"messages" are "mostly... simple texts, exhortations to peace, prayer,
penance, and conversion, in which the mind and the environment of the seers
are clearly reflected" (I. Zeljko, Marian
apparitions..., 2004, p. 315). Among the so-called ten
secrets, of which the seers only give hints, they specify as confirmation for
the Marian apparitions a permanent and visible sign on the hill of the first
apparition. The fulfillment of this sign, announced in 1981, is still
outstanding after nearly thirty years, quite in contrast to Guadalupe and
Fatima, where an obvious sign appeared in the year of the apparitions itself
(the image of the Mother of God on the "tilma", or respectively, the miracle
of the sun). From that penetrating research, the filtering of the "messages"
by the seers or by the priests connected with them was named as a problem. The
problematic assertions are often only known to critical source research
through obscure publications (in part only in Croatian, English, and French),
and are withheld from the broader public.

Particularly in the early period of the
phenomenon there were several very unusual messages. According to a
tape-recording transcript from June 30, 1981, the seers reported, according to
the assertion of the "Gospa", the end of the appearances would be in three
days (on July 3), but they then went on. At the sixth apparition (June 29,
1981), the "Gospa" announced the healing of a four-year-old boy, but it never
happened. Furthermore, the "Gospa" informed them (May 25, 1984) that her
two-thousandth birthday would fall on August 5, 1984. Would the real Mother of
God propagate a birthday celebration for herself, that sets itself apart from
the date of the liturgical feast (September 8)? If the given date were to be
correct historically, then Mary would have been born in the year 16 B.C.
Since, because of the historical data known to us (census, astronomical conjunction), the birth of Christ
is to be set at 7 B.C., then Mary would be about 9 years old at the birth of
Christ. Besides untruths and ridiculous things, some erroneous teachings are
also presented alongside them: Fr. Vlasic wrote on May 8, 1982, in the
Chronicle he authored, that according to the utterance of the "Gospa" the
Saints in Heaven are present there not only with the soul, but also with the
body. Here on display is the erroneous teaching, widely spread today, but
condemned by the Church, of "resurrection in death", in which awaiting the
future resurrection at the Second Coming of Christ is rendered nugatory. In
other words: alongside plenty of catechetical platitudes that are found with
notably more substance in the Bible and the Catechism, the messages contain
elements that speak clearly against a supernatural origin of the
phenomenon.

Devotees and critics of Medjugorje both
claim the duration of the phenomenon as an argument for their position. With
reason?

The
duration of the phenomenon, considered by itself, speaks neither for nor
against the authenticity of the apparitions. In 2008 the bishop of Gap and
Embrun recognized the supernatural character of the Marian apparitions of
Notre-Dame du Laus (southeastern France), which took place from 1664 to 1718,
and thus comprised a time-span of 54 years. The seer, 17 years old at the
beginning of the events, saw the apparitions daily for four months. Later she
had mystical encounters with Christ or with the Mother of God only from time
to time. In any case, apart from the four months in 1664, there was no
regularity of the visionary phenomenon as at Medjugorje. Where the
extraordinary event of visions becomes regular, even a daily normal case, and
"monthly messages" of the Mother of God are announced in advance on radio
programs, that brings on skepticism. A plethora of messages is typical of
spiritistic phenomena, as, for example, the thirteen volumes of the Canadian
seer Marie-Paule Giguere, which the French theologian Rene Laurentin, a great
promoter of Medjugorje, well-meaningly found worthy (in them the seer, who
drew her insights from a crystal ball, presents herself as the reincarnation
of the Mother of God, who crushes the Serpent's head and would be canonized in
her own lifetime; one of her sons would become Pope, and another "Teacher of
the Nations"; the movement founded by Marie-Paule, in the meantime, was
condemned by the Church; cf. J. Boufflet, Faussaires de
Dieu, 2000, pp. 562-570). In this earthly
pilgrimage, the believer does not live by seeing, but by hearing the Word of
God. Only in the joy of Heaven will faith be replaced by
sight.

In
evaluating a phenomenon so multifaceted as Medjugorje, does the Church balance
pastoral aspects and issues of Church law against one another? Or is there in
the end a dogmatic resolution above all else?

As long as
it is not unambiguously determined from the aspect of Church law, that the
"Marian apparitions" connected with Medjugorje are not of a supernatural
character (constat de non supernaturalitate), pilgrimage activity is tolerated
on the private level. Only public pilgrimages conducted by Church institutions
are forbidden. At present the verdict of the Yugoslav bishops' conference from
1991 is still valid, according to which a supernatural origin is not
established (non constat de supernaturalitate). This means that the "proofs"
advanced by many devotees of Medjugorje for its credibility (light phenomena,
healings, conversions) were not considered convincing. Besides that, Bishop
Ratko Peric stated on September 1, 2007: "The Church, from the local level to
the highest, from the beginnings to the present day, has repeated clearly and
consistently: Non constat de supernaturalitate! This means in practice: no
pilgrimages are allowed, because they would presume the supernatural origin of
the apparitions; there is no shrine of the Madonna and there are no authentic
messages, revelations, or true visions! This is the state of things today.
What will be tomorrow? We will leave that in the hands of God and under the
protection of our dear Lady." Thus the bishop. Purely theoretically judgment
is open for a future recognition (constat de supernaturalitate) or a final
rejection (constat de non supernaturalitate). But until then, what the bishop
said in a sermon in Medjugorje on June 6, 2009, and which he has documented on
his internet site, remains valid: "The Church has not recognized the
"apparitions of Medjugorje" (http://cbismo.com/index.php?mod=vijest&vijest=416;
Il fenomeno di Medjugorje, 3a parte, Slubeni vjesnik, 2/2009, pp.
190-194).

For
pastoral care it is important, to lead the renewal of faith created by the
stream of pilgrims to Medjugorje into the roads of the Church, and not let the
devotees of the phenomenon fall into the void. Marian devotees would be well
advised to concentrate on trustworthy prophetic revelations, approved and well
accepted by the whole Church, so that they would deal with, say, Guadalupe,
Lourdes, or Fatima. Questionable and unequivocally false phenomena should be
presented as such. Therefore it is not sufficient, in my estimation, to
pragmatically recognize Medjugorje as a "place of prayer", without reaching a
judgment on the events that lie at its basis. German bishops also reacted
against this approach: non-recognition of alleged "apparitions" along with
simultaneous recognition of the place as an official "shrine" (for example,
with respect to Heroldsbach and
Marienfried). If a new
investigative commission reaches a recognition that certain characteristics
indissolubly connected with the phenomenon of the apparitions speak against
their authenticity, then the love of truth demands that this be made known
with all clarity and that Catholic Christians be warned expressly against
"pilgrimages". The principle is valid here: "bonum ex integra causa; malum ex
quovis defectu" ("Good comes from an undamaged cause; bad from some kind of
defect"). If a drink is mixed with rat poison, it's not sufficient to point
out that it contains only two percent strychnine with 98 percent water: the
whole drink has to be poured out. If the Church does not, herself, finally
lance the boil that is connected with Medjugorje, then anti-Catholic groups
will do the job and with pleasure. And then the patience extended to the
enthusiasm of Medjugorje could become a boomerang that attacks the Church from
inside, if the groups previously connected with the Bosnian "place of
pilgrimage", finally disillusioned, should turn against the Faith and the
Church. And that could also explain that the devil takes "good fruits" as part
of doing his business in Medjugorje: if he can bring forth a vastly greater
harm to the Church in the end. Pastoral love must not be separated from the
love of truth.

Discern the spirits to find out who they are? Discern
the fruits of the so called revelation or apparition. Most importantly follow
the guidance of the Church. Just because something sounds good does not mean
it is good. What is the history of the approved apparitions?A few
questions for discernment.

In the Love of Christ:

The
Director

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